


Swoon

by blusher91



Category: The Terror (TV 2018), The Terror - Dan Simmons
Genre: Established Relationship, M/M, Sexual Fantasy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-13
Updated: 2019-01-13
Packaged: 2019-10-09 09:59:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,720
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17404808
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blusher91/pseuds/blusher91
Summary: Francis finally coaxes James to admit to a long-held and long unrealised fantasy of his.





	Swoon

**Author's Note:**

> This is a prequel to Taking Liberties, which you can find [here](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17394644).

It was the fourth night Francis had sat opposite the _Erebus_ captain and wished he could just open a window to that daft head of his. For a man he had once dismissed as a mouthy coxcomb who had preened and flattered his way up the hierarchy, James was in reality capable of saying a great deal about nothing and thinking a great deal about much. Francis could practically see the wheels turning in his brain as he brooded and berated himself.

“You know I have a sailor’s patience, James.” Francis’s chair gave a low growl as he sat back. “If you’re trying to wait me out, that is.”

Fitzjames gave him a withering look and said nothing. He nudged at his empty glass with a disinterested hand.

Two cups in and he was still stiffer than a board. Sitting on the edge of his seat all straight-backed and tense, like he still had that pole up his arse. The one Francis had rather thought he’d managed to permanently dislodge with a fair few good, hard shags. But apparently James’s drunken almost-confession almost a week ago, about some fantasy he was half mad and full-cocked for had jammed that pole back in hard and fast when he sobered up. Now he wouldn’t even acknowledge that he’d said anything.

And as a by-product of his self-flagellating embarrassment, he hadn’t been up for a shag for days. Which was considerably bloody worse.

Francis turned his own glass over in his hands. “I’m more than happy to sit here all night.” He gave James a pointed look. “Every night if need be. Time is the one resource we have a damned surplus of.”

James said nothing. His pretty, well-bred mouth was pursed in a tight, overwrought line. There was a flush of red high in his cheeks. The only outward sign he was in any turmoil underneath that polished exterior of his. It made Francis ache just looking at him.

He leant forward in his chair, fixing James with the most serious look he could muster when so far into his cups. “James.”

James’s jaw twitched. He looked up at him, finally meeting his eyes with those overly pensive brown ones of his that could make lads and lasses alike swoon at the sight of him.

“I know you want something from me.” Francis reached across the table and clutched James’s rigid hands with his. “I know there’s something I could give you, something I could _do_ for you. To please you.” He rubbed his thumb over James’s knuckle. “And I know you want to tell me, my love. In truth. In deepest truth. I know you do.”

An anguished, though tightly constrained frown creased James’s forehead. Francis thought, not for the first time, that James might shatter like porcelain if he didn’t unwind himself from whatever tizzy he’d gotten himself into. And all over the thought of some silly, naughty playacting. Playacting that would undoubtedly be downright lovely for the both of them besides.

“Do you not trust me?” Francis ventured.

A slightly wild expression came rapidly into James’s angular features that made Francis sit back in his chair.

“Are you out of your mind?” James hissed, and it was a thorough relief to Francis to see him display something other than ruminating silence. “After all we’ve been through, you would dare doubt my fidelity? I trust you more than _any_ man—”

He lapsed into prickly silence, snatching his hands from underneath Francis’s. A full blush had settled in his cheeks. His eyes smouldered in irritation.

“That was a cheap ploy.”

Francis smirked and didn’t feel a shred of guilt for it. “Ah, _there_ is your fine, English tongue.” He leant towards him conspiratorially. “Ready to tell daddy what he needs to hear?”

James held his eye for a long, tenuous moment. And then he breathed out in a relieved, defeated manner. “I would appreciate clarity if we were to… do this.”

“Clarity” was his way of saying he didn’t want Francis pissed. And he hardly had to ask. Francis wanted to be in the sharpest of minds to take care of his love and give him precisely what he needed.

Francis dipped his head in agreement. “Clarity you will have.”

James worked his mouth. Every inch of him was alert like a spooked animal. It had occurred to Francis that whatever James’s private notion was could be something he quite simply couldn’t deliver, but his instincts told him it was not so. And the hankering he now had himself to be James’s partner in this almost felt like a strange fetish in itself.

James looked down at his hands. “I wish to be… taken.”

Francis was careful not to dismiss the statement, as simple as it seemed. Given the number of times he’d been buried to the hilt inside of the _Erebus_ captain, he assumed there was more to it.

James’s hands tensed on the tabletop. “Taken against my will. Held down by someone stronger than I.” He panted a breath, as though it were an exertion to get the words out. “Not by a stranger, you understand. By a…” He seemed to struggle for a moment to find the right word. “Friend.”

Francis’s mind was beginning to see the full picture. The upstanding, dashing young Captain Fitzjames wanted to be held down and ravished like a helpless maiden. Francis’s heart beat faster in his chest. It certainly wasn’t an unusual desire at all but coming from such a man it was a _feast_ of possibilities. Not to mention: delicious irony _._

James’s eyes were anxious and bright. His hands were still curled into anxious claws on the table in front of him. His voice shook when he spoke. “I know it is a… deviant thought.”

Francis shook his head in disbelief. In a rapid movement, he rounded the table to kneel beside James’s chair. James flinched, staring down at him like he had just grown a second head.

Clasping his hands between his, Francis pinned them into the man’s lap. “Is that all, love?” He gave a gentle chuckle and lowered his voice an octave. “You wish for me to ravish you? You wish for me to throw you down and take you the way you need to be taken whether you want it or not?”

James’s hands went rigid underneath his at Francis’s words. The colour in his cheek darkened fiercely.

“Francis…” James breathed, looking at him as though he could hardly believe he was there.

Francis lifted a hand to brush back a few strands of his well-tended hair from his face. “Tomorrow night. Once the men have eaten and settled in. I’ll come across to the _Erebus_ , if that pleases you.”

James very nearly melted in front of him, almost slid right off his seat into Francis’s lap. “I… You would truly—” He fell silent with a soft breath out. “Thank you, Francis.”

Francis shook his head with a touch of exasperation. “And here I was preparing myself for you to announce you could now only come off if we copulated upside down on an iceshelf.”

 

The buoyant bounce to Francis’s step the next day did not go unnoticed.

Blanky sent him a suspicious look when they managed to find a moment alone during the men’s dinner.

“You’re right cheerful today. Been getting into the whiskey early?”

Francis just shrugged and said nothing, careful to keep anything like a smile from creeping into the corners of his mouth. Last thing he needed was for anyone to see him acting like a lovesick milkmaid.

“Fitzjames been spending more time on our vessel than his own it seems.” Blanky looked at him knowingly. “Of late.”

Francis gave a good-natured groan. “Leave off, Thomas. What do you want? A full description of his prick and hole?”

Blanky snorted. “Wouldn’t go amiss.”

Francis scoffed and turned his head in a way that indicated that the current subject of conversation was now closed. Of course, he wanted nothing bloody more than to speak about what he had learnt. Wanted nothing more than to confide in his friend that the ever so proper and prim Fitzjames wanted nothing more than to be held down and given one with purpose. Blanky would have appreciated it more than most.

But Francis thought too much of James to do such a thing. The breach of trust involved in Francis telling anyone of his predilections would very likely have broken him. And Francis in turn.

Once Thomas had gone, with one more eyebrow raise at him before he went, Francis returned to his quarters. For once there wasn’t a bottle to be seen, and his cut glasses were in the cabinet. He had snuck in a few mouthfuls mid-afternoon, but that hardly broke the bank. In truth he felt just about as sober as he ever had. Jumpy and edgy like a debutant schoolboy mind. In the best of ways.

He straightened his coat and took one more, steadying sip of whiskey before he took his leave for the _Erebus_.

The crew onboard knew by now to hide any surprise they had at his presence. Though for many reasons, the captains spent a great deal of time on both ships so perhaps they had simply stopped wondering. And Francis knew better than to assume that the men didn’t also have their own intrigues and preoccupations. He’d caught his share of overwrought seamen pawing at each other in storerooms to think otherwise.

He paused in the corridor to James’s quarters. The night before, once Francis had pried the first words of confession from James, the rest had come like a flood. He knew what James wanted, in fierce and vivid colour and form. Francis shivered a little where he stood.

Important to keep his excitement in check. The night was for James. Not that it wouldn’t be… _ravishing_ for him as well.

He grinned and stepped forward to rap on James’s door. With the required amount of force. The sort he might use if they had still been at each other’s throats and he was coming to put James in his place. He snorted at his own choice of words.

“Come in,” came James’s well-cultivated tones.

With a smirk to himself, Francis threw the door open and strode in.


End file.
